


Bolster

by YoGrossDude



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-07 19:23:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16859884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YoGrossDude/pseuds/YoGrossDude
Summary: Aloy's investigation into enhanced machines results in an injury. Fortunately, Erend provides a solution.





	Bolster

**Author's Note:**

> [godliath's](http://godliath.com/post/177814529142) amazing art is solely responsible for this

Erend prods the fallen Snapmaw with his boot. Aloy holds her breath and shoots him a glare - he gives her a shrug and a sheepish smile.

“This one looks pretty dead to me,” he says, angling his head to get a better look at it. It still doesn’t budge, and Aloy is forced to agree.

She bites the inside of her mouth, thinking, a hot breeze off the Daybrink tousling her hair.

“Three more,” she says finally, “Then we can go back.” Erend heaves an exaggerated sigh and she rolls her eyes.

“ _You_ volunteered,” she reminds him.

“I remember.” He grins back at her, rolls his neck across his shoulders. “I’ll scout for the rest if you’re gonna go elbow deep in the guts of this one, too.”

Aloy nods and Erend marches on further ahead, scanning the shore, hands cupped around his eyes to block the sun’s glare off the water. She crouches down beside the fallen Snapmaw, picking at its glittering innards.

_Redundancies_ , CYAN called them. HEPHAESTUS was planning to make its machines work past the point where they should’ve already been destroyed, based on what she had seen while infected with its Daemon. She said it would likely place any newer models near “high population centers” for testing, and when the rumors started coming in about a Snapmaw near the Daybrink that kept charging at hunters, despite being wreathed in flames and still dragging its ruined body forward, Aloy immediately decided to look into it.

So far, though, the rumors seemed to be typical Hunter’s Lodge tall tales - she and Erend had put down four since dawn, not one of them springing back to life after their respective defeats. Aloy sighs, reaching deeper into the metal carcass, searching for the heart. CYAN told her she could use them to glean more information about HEPHAESTUS’s plans for updating the machines, maybe even verify any new designs.

A red light flickers to life at the edge of her vision.

Aloy dives away, but it’s too slow, too late: steel slices into her skin, and she cries out at the sudden agony of her ankle being crushed between its jaws.

The pain coupled with the Snapmaw’s toss of its head makes her readied arrows go high and wild; her bow fumbles out of her grasp when she’s lifted her own height off the ground. Both hands scramble for her spear as the Snapmaw throws her into a brutal landing, sending the breath out of her lungs, dragging her across the ground. She whips herself over to face it, forces herself to steady her grip, and aims for barely more than half a heartbeat, thrusting her spear forward into the damaged part of its face - and feels a rush of savage joy at the sound of stressed metal and snapping wires and shattering glass.

The Snapmaw shudders violently, but it doesn’t let go, not even when she jerks her spear back to strike it again, harder this time, and again, harder still, only dimly aware that it’s finally stopped, the red light fading from its eyes, that someone behind her is frantically shouting her name. Its jaws are still closed around her foot; she shoves her spear between them in a frenzied attempt to pry them open, gritting her teeth against the pain and grunting with effort, and a burst of panic jolts through her when it doesn’t budge.

Erend rushes in out of nowhere, kicking up clouds of sand, wedging his hammer between the Snapmaw’s metal jaws and throws his whole weight into pressing it down. Between their combined efforts, the jaws finally crack open, just enough so Aloy can yank her foot free - it’s covered in blood and every nerve is raw and screaming, but at least it's still attached - and then rough hands clutch at her shoulders and Erend’s face is the only thing she can see.

He’s too close, hovering barely an inch away from her face, his eyes wide and terrified, pale as bone. “You okay?” he asks, the words tumbling out in a jumbled rush, and he doesn’t even wait for an answer until he’s asked it another three times in the same breath.

“ _Erend_.” She puts a hand on the side of his face without really knowing why; he removes a vice grip on her shoulder to hold her there. “I’m okay.”

His relieved sigh is so heavy it makes his whole body slump. “Good,” he says, breathless and low, his throat bobbing with a hard swallow, “Good.”

He squeezes the hand he’s still holding against his cheek, sending an unexpected jolt tingling down her arm. It makes her flinch against his skin, and he drops his hand immediately, realizes how close he is and rears back so quickly she thinks he might topple over. She pulls her hand back, curls it into a fist at her side to hide the way it trembles, suddenly cold without him there.

She clears her throat. “But I did almost get my foot gnawed off by a Snapmaw.”

He scrambles over to examine her wound, his face screwing up as he looks it over and hisses through his teeth. “I _really_ hope that feels better than it looks.”

“It doesn’t,” she says.

They wash the blood off together with water from the lake, dress it with the cleanest bandages Erend has on him, her own supplies thrown free from her pack from the Snapmaw. The cut low into the meat of her leg isn’t so bad, really, despite Erend’s wincing, but her ankle is sore and stinging, the skin already turning red and a worryingly bright purple. She grits her teeth and clenches her fists, gathering herself to stand - and Erend is already pushing her back down, staring at her like she’s lost her mind.

“Aloy, Fire and Spit, don’t try to _stand_ on it!”

“If you know a way for me to get to Brightmarket without walking there, I’m all ears,” she hisses. There’s venom in her voice, but it’s not meant for him, not really. She’d been careless, blundered right into a danger she was fully aware of, without anything to show for it other than a wound.

His mouth twists into a worried frown. “Well, what if...what if I carried you back?”

She blinks at him, caught off-guard. “ _Can_ you?” she asks skeptically.

Erend huffs a laugh, eyebrows raised. “Yeah? Pretty sure I’ve lifted scrap way heavier than you.”

Aloy presses her lips together. If there’s an alternative, she doesn’t see it.

“Don’t drop me,” she grates, after a long pause.

“I won’t. Promise.”

He carefully loops an arm under her legs, his fingers barely brushing against the underside of her knees, his other arm against her back, hand curling slightly around her ribs. She fights the impulse to fidget when she realizes how close he is, and barely clamps down on a surprised yelp when he just _lifts_ her into the air, like she weighs nothing at all.

“See?” he says to her startled look, his grin much too wide for her liking, “What’d I tell you?”

She tries, and fails, to quiet the wild fluttering in her belly, crossing her arms over her chest and looking away. It shouldn’t be so _easy_ for him.

“This is so embarrassing,” she mumbles.

“I won’t tell anyone.”

Right. Like Brightmarket would somehow be empty in the middle of the day, not filled with people more than willing to gawk at the Captain of the Vanguard with the “Savior of Meridian” in his arms, rumors ready to start flying like arrows.

Her face twists at the thought, and even though she’s facing away from him, Erend somehow can tell, because he says, “Hey, I can put you down when we’re close enough. You can just lean on me to make it into Brightmarket.”

It’s enough for her to turn back to study him for a long moment, blue eyes and easy grin, the warm, solid feel of him.

“Thanks, Erend,” she tells him, her voice, for some reason, unusually quiet. She can’t make it any louder, not that it needs to be.

If he noticed that, he doesn’t show it. “No problem.”

They lapse into silence, but it’s comfortable rather than prickly. Erend moves through the grass and trees at a steady pace, and she’s pretty sure at this point he’s unlikely to stumble. Aloy leans into him without really meaning to, resting her head against his chest. She catches the scent of old leather and steel and - of course - Oseram brew, but it doesn’t roll off of him in overpowering waves like it had before; it’s faint enough where she might’ve even deemed it tolerable.

“Still doing alright?” She can feel the words just as well as she can hear them, and when she looks up, he’s right there to meet her gaze, with a soft smile that violently twists something inside her chest.

“Fine,” she says, turning away again, trying to hide the sudden heat rising on her face, her insides buzzing and burning all at once, “I’m fine.”


End file.
